As 2024 draws to a close and COP29 approaches, it’s a perfect time to reflect on both the advancements and practices at the intersection of investments in climate and education throughout the year as well as some clues on what might lie ahead in the coming months.

The climate and education crises are both, fundamentally, failures of their respective systems, each contributing to the current polycrisis. And as such, they cannot be solved in isolation from each other.

GPE's Climate-Smart Education System Framework proposes a systems approach that brings together the dimensions of what it means to build education systems that can stand up to the climate challenge. Throughout 2024, GPE has also continued co-chairing a special interest group on climate and education to facilitate the sharing of information at a global level on the latest evidence and to coordinate future research efforts between partners.

There have been important additions to the evidence base this year. Both the World Bank and the UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report team released flagship reports:

• Choosing our Future: Education for Climate Action, Education
• Climate Change: Learning to Act for People and Planet

These reports underline the underappreciated contribution of education to the battle against climate change and highlight the importance of the bidirectional relationship between climate change and education.

In parallel, progress has been made in understanding the evidence gaps and priorities, with two research frameworks launched this year by the Center for Global Development and the Overseas Development Institute respectively:

• Climate Change and Education: Building Momentum through a Shared Research Agenda
• CERF’s up! The Climate Education Research Framework

Together, these 4 publications have consolidated knowledge and set a new standard for practitioners and researchers worldwide in 2024. They are essential reads for all of us working in education and with an interest in the well-being of this planet.

They also stress how education is a key enabler of both climate change awareness and action. Understanding the role of education becomes even more relevant when examining the unequal effects of climate change on the world and different groups of people.

Building climate resilience through education

Climate change disproportionately affects already vulnerable populations, and this impact is often connected to a lack of access to quality education.

Sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, has the highest proportion of people at high risk from extreme weather events. These populations are also at high risk of being unable to cope with or recover from losses resulting from climate impacts, partly due to limited educational opportunities and low income, but also insufficient action from governments to mitigate the impacts of crises.

Investing in education is fundamental to increasing incomes. The growth enabled by investments in education strikingly benefits those experiencing extreme poverty and promotes gender equality. Gains in schooling have led to roughly 70% of income gains among the world’s poorest 20% as well as 40% of the reduction of extreme poverty since 1980. Education also explains over 50% of the reductions in gender-based labor income inequality during the same period.

Education also enhances the ability of households to prepare for and manage shocks tied to climate change. Evidence suggests that households with higher education levels have a better understanding of and ability to process risk information such as weather forecasts and early warnings.

These households are also less likely to resort to negative coping strategies in response to climate shocks such as eating less nutritional meals, attending fewer health care visits and taking children out of school.

Green returns on education? A financial incentive for climate awareness and improved learning outcomes

Education stands as one of the most powerful predictors of climate awareness. While awareness alone doesn’t always translate into action, a foundational understanding or concern about environmental issues is often a critical precursor to meaningful engagement.

In “Choosing Our Future: Education for Climate Action”, the World Bank estimates that just 1 additional year of education increases climate awareness by 8.6% and that this effect is likely larger in higher-quality education systems. If each additional year of schooling boosts climate awareness so significantly, then ensuring 12 years of quality education for every child could rapidly elevate climate awareness and likely catalyze much-needed climate action now.

Is there a more impactful investment for both the planet and our children?

Yet, the Geneva Global Hub for Education in Emergencies estimates that only 1.5% of climate overseas developmental assistance went to education in 2021 - a clear financial mismatch that needs to change if we are to address the climate-education crisis.

One of the innovative efforts to help countries improve their readiness to access and deploy climate finance for education is the Climate-Smart Education Systems Initiative. Funded by GPE, the initiative is aimed at enhancing the capacity of ministries of education to integrate climate change adaptation and environmental sustainability into their education sector plans, budgets and strategies.

Early learnings from the initiative highlight the importance of coordination and communication among various ministries and thematic actors that are crucial for effective implementation of cross-sectoral climate change initiatives.

This collaboration involves not just ministries of education, environment and disaster management, but also civil society and teachers, and promotes both country-specific and global knowledge exchange. As a result, countries can be more prepared to simultaneously mobilize resources from climate and education funds, and these funds can be programmed together for better mutual benefits across sectors.

The Climate-Smart Education Systems Initiative can also help us understand more about the types of interventions that should be supported to build climate-smart education systems, including analyzing the costs of these interventions in different contexts and the potential long-term savings they could provide to governments - all major gaps in our current understanding.

Diving deeper into linked climate-education solutions

As we take stock of the rapidly evolving knowledge, experience and urgency surrounding climate-related education efforts, our 2024 climate blog series will explore a range of issues over the coming weeks.

We will feature insights from various authors on national efforts to implement climate change education, the impact of eco-anxiety and the psychosocial effects of climate change on young people and youth leadership in climate action. Additionally, we will examine what the global debates at COP29 mean for education as we enter this decisive decade to address the climate emergency.

So stay tuned!